Coming in July...

[ymhee_bcex]

We actually added a simplified "Speed Dial" page today which technically just creates call routes, but it's a simple page. All it asks for/shows is "Code" and "Destination".

It's a good start. It has everything that you guys need to implement the speed dial. Aunt Millie, however, thinks that without a Name field the page is peculiar (I would use a stronger word, but she is an old-fashioned lady). Does the page designer expect her to remember who these numbers belong to? Or the developers coded the page without any designer's guidance? Sure, Name is a useless field for them - so why put it!

[RingyDingyDave]

Would it be possible to put the CallerID info beside the phone number in the Call History list? I know I can click on the number and see the CallerID info the the popup, but I think it would be handy to see it right on the main list.

[VOIPoTim]

Would it be possible to put the CallerID info beside the phone number in the Call History list? I know I can click on the number and see the CallerID info the the popup, but I think it would be handy to see it right on the main list.

This is one of those things that in theory is simple, but in telecom nothing is

It might be possible to show a name stored in "Contacts" (I can pass this suggestion on to our developers), but it's a lot harder to show the Caller ID name that we lookup. The reason is that we pay per lookup and we're contractually not allowed to store the looked up name and must do a new lookup every single time we use the name so that would add up quick if showing it on all of them whereas we only pay for a lookup on ones clicked on the current way.

Now if we used the "Contacts" name which is a name you enter then we don't need to do a lookup and can obviously store stuff that you enter yourself.

Would the contact name be as useful?

[RingyDingyDave]

This is one of those things that in theory is simple, but in telecom nothing is

It might be possible to show a name stored in "Contacts" (I can pass this suggestion on to our developers), but it's a lot harder to show the Caller ID name that we lookup. The reason is that we pay per lookup and we're contractually not allowed to store the looked up name and must do a new lookup every single time we use the name so that would add up quick if showing it on all of them whereas we only pay for a lookup on ones clicked on the current way.

Now if we used the "Contacts" name which is a name you enter then we don't need to do a lookup and can obviously store stuff that you enter yourself.

Would the contact name be as useful?

Sure, that would be better than nothing. But let me point out that CallerID info for each call is already buried in the Call History page-- it's there for the popup. Would you have to pay again to put the same data on the same page twice, once in a visible spot? (If so, I would suggest putting it in the visible spot, and removing it from the popup box.)

[MarkTomlinson]

I've been hesitant to critique the new vPanel because it really is a lot better than the old one, and I can see a lot of work went into it. But it is beta, after all, so you are looking for feedback.

The first issue I've got is that all the "features" are buried under one menu item. That's a long list to hunt through when I want to check voice-mail or look at my call history. I would rather look through a short list of dad-to-day features, with the once, seldom, or never used features tucked under another menu. For instance, how often do you set your caller ID? Once, maybe? Why must I scroll past that on the way to finding my voice-mail?

The other issue I have is that I was hoping for sortable lists. I've mentioned it here before and was really hoping for it. This would be especially helpful with call routing, so I could click on a heading and get a sorted list of blocked numbers. Then I could look for patterns (a lot of spam calls from the same area code and exchange?) and set up one wildcard rule to block the entire range.

Thanks for the fine work you guys are doing.

[MHedish]

I agree with MarkTonlinson regarding the sortable lists. Being able to sort contacts, call routes, etc. would be huge.

[VOIPoTim]

I've been hesitant to critique the new vPanel because it really is a lot better than the old one, and I can see a lot of work went into it. But it is beta, after all, so you are looking for feedback.

The first issue I've got is that all the "features" are buried under one menu item. That's a long list to hunt through when I want to check voice-mail or look at my call history. I would rather look through a short list of dad-to-day features, with the once, seldom, or never used features tucked under another menu. For instance, how often do you set your caller ID? Once, maybe? Why must I scroll past that on the way to finding my voice-mail?

The other issue I have is that I was hoping for sortable lists. I've mentioned it here before and was really hoping for it. This would be especially helpful with call routing, so I could click on a heading and get a sorted list of blocked numbers. Then I could look for patterns (a lot of spam calls from the same area code and exchange?) and set up one wildcard rule to block the entire range.

Thanks for the fine work you guys are doing.

In terms of features all being lumped together...one of the biggest complaints we got before is that people couldn't find stuff or didn't like searching. So our thinking with the new one is that by having all the features in one single area alphabetized, it's very easy to find everything and nothing can get "lost" and there's no searching...it's all there in alphabetical order. I do see what you are saying though in that you may not use all of them. We've thought about adding a "Favorites" top level category where you could select any of the "Sub Nav Items" to have show in it. It would be user controllable and you could make a page with your own feature choices basically. This way everything is still in the comprehensive view, but your custom one could only have the ones you use. What do you think about that?

In terms of sortable lists, I agree that that is likely useful and I doubt it's hard to put in place so I'll add it to our list and we'll likely add it as we go through each page fixing formatting/styling.

[VOIPoTim]

Also..does anyone have any ideas for the "Home Page" or do you guys like it blank?

We're likely just going through put up something explaining the navigation (4 cats + alphabetical), but we're open to good ideas for it.

[MarkTomlinson]

Also..does anyone have any ideas for the "Home Page" or do you guys like it blank?

I think it would be good if we could configure the 'home page' to be any features page or blank. I, for one, would like the call history to come up when I log in, although I acknowledge others might want to see voice mail or some other.

Regarding your response ahead of this, having everything spread around different menus or piling it all in one place are opposite extremes. My thought was that you could create a 'Configuration' menu that includes things like setting caller ID, device volume control, 411, SIP address and so on. I'd shove the VPanel Preferences under there as well.

[usa2k]

Maybe an info blurb of some sort. If you were confident enough, something like HostGator had done in news letters:

November 2011 Stats:

Domains Hosted: 7,154,339
Data Hosted: 1.21 PB
Emails Received: 644,193,021
Emails Sent: 503,183,391
Spam Stopped: 2,848,293,522